In 2009, United Heartland (UH) partnered with a dry foods blending and packaging facility that employed more than 600 people. The facility had experienced a high incidence of ergonomic claims due to the manually intensive nature of the work. These claims were caused by repetitive tasks and included manual material handling and cumulative trauma disorder injuries. The facility was open to teaming with a work comp provider that could help them implement increased workplace safety initiatives and develop a proactive approach to ergonomic issues.

When United Heartland met with the food packaging facility to examine their loss history, UH quickly put an ergonomic exposures study into place to identify gaps and weaknesses in the existing program and create procedures and solutions that could reduce incidents. United Heartland observed production lines from an ergonomic standpoint, created an ergonomic training presentation for facility staff, created interventions including a stretch and flex program, improved and optimized line setups to accommodate varying employee statures, and reviewed ongoing ergonomic initiatives.

The goal was to reduce ergonomic related injuries by 25% within a two-year period.

By 2013, the food packaging facility was able to realize a 59% reduction in claims and a 95.7% reduction in average claim cost through the regular evaluations, testing and training implemented by United Heartland.

By implementing proactive ergonomic interventions and focusing on manual material handling exposures and work-related musculoskeletal disorders, UH helped this customer see their overall claims costs and frequency of ergonomic claims decrease significantly in just a few years. At United Heartland, we make it our business to know your business, so you can count on UH to provide the right insurance program, loss control and claims services to keep your organization producing materials at peak performance.

United Heartland is the marketing name for United Wisconsin Insurance Company, a member of AF Group. Insurance policies may be issued by any of the following companies within AF Group: Accident Fund Insurance Company of America, Accident Fund National Insurance Company, Accident Fund General Insurance Company, United Wisconsin Insurance Company, Third Coast Insurance Company or CompWest Insurance Company.